


Roadside Rescue

by IBoatedHere



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baker Bitty, Getting Together, Inspired by a true story: My Story, Jack never went to Samwell, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Car Accident, winter weather
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 01:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9267203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IBoatedHere/pseuds/IBoatedHere
Summary: "Sometimes you have to go off the road to appreciate how good it feels to stay on the road" - My Sister





	

Bitty’s only going ten miles an hour when his car slides off the road.

He had been doing so well.

The roads are terrible and his windshield wipers are having a hard time keeping up with the falling snow but he was keeping his cool even though the heat was blasting and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

He kept a good bit of distance between him and the car ahead of him but that car had braked and so had Bitty, just a tap, and that was enough for his admittedly sketchy tires to lose traction and send him off the road.

It’s in slow motion as it’s happening and when Bitty comes to a stop down a slight embankment he almost doesn’t believe that it happened.

The car is still running so he turns it off with the wipers halfway up the windshield.

He takes a few breath then opens the door and gets out.

He had the heat all the way up but when the wind and the snow whips against his face he barely even feels it.

The snow is up to his shin and it soaks into his jeans and his Converse but he doesn’t feel that either.

His Honda took out a few shrubs but he missed a telephone pole, a stop sign, and several trees and he feels like he should pat himself on the back for that.

The feeling doesn’t last long because when he looks back towards the road there’s a truck pulled off on the shoulder with its flashers on and a man standing halfway down the embankment.

“Hey, are you okay?”

It hits Bitty that this really happened and he doesn’t know what to do. The adrenaline wears off and he starts to panic.

The guy comes closer and Bitty starts to shake.

“Are you okay?” He asks again and Bitty brings his hands to his face to try to muffle the sob.

It doesn’t work.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he says over and over as the guy hesitantly puts his hand on his shoulder. Bitty ducks away from the touch even though all he wants to do is have someone hold him so he can rest his head somewhere. “I don’t know what happened. I was going slow, I was being careful. I’m so close to home, I only have a few miles left.”

“Okay,” the guy says slowly. He’s a lot taller than Bitty with broad shoulders and eyes so blue they cut right through the storm. “But are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Bitty cries, “I don’t think so. My car, what do I do with my car? How do I….” He stops and covers his face completely. He’s overwhelmed and cold and wet and he’d give anything to be home right now.

“I have some chains in my truck. I can probably pull it out. Why don’t you come sit in my truck while I get everything set up. I’ll turn the heat on for you.”

Bitty nods and follows in his footsteps up to the road. He opens the door and leans over to turn the heat up high and Bitty climbs in.

The guy pops open the glove compartment and pulls out an unopened package of tissues and hands them over.

“Here,” he says and Bitty nods in thanks before he’s closing the door and grabbing the chain from the bed of the truck.

Bitty wipes his nose and his face then crosses his arms over his chest and tries to focus on his breathing as the warm air hits his face.

He’s almost back to normal when the guy gets back into the driver’s side and hands Bitty’s phone out to him.

“It was in the cup holder,” he explains. “I can get your car out but I don’t think you should be driving, you’re way too upset. Do you have someone you can call to come pick you up?”

 _Shitty and Lardo_. 

They’d drop everything for him and they’ve been driving in shitty weather a lot longer than he has. They can handle it.

Bitty nods and takes his phone to call them and the guy starts the truck and starts to pull his car out of the ditch.

Shitty picks up on the third ring and Bitty starts crying again.

He guy sits patiently albeit awkwardly beside him as he sobs into the phone.

He gets enough information out to tell Shitty that he’s okay, the car’s okay ( _”the car doesn’t matter Bits, as long as you’re okay”_ ), and where he is.

“We’re five minutes away, Bits, hang tight, okay? I’ll drive you back and Lardo will take your car. She can get to it? We don’t have to pull it out? Do I need to call a tow truck?”

“No, no, it’s okay. The car is on the side of the road. Someone stopped and pulled it out for me. A guy.” Bitty looks over at him and catches him looking back.

“Jack. My name is Jack.”

“Jack,” he tells Shitty. “Jack stopped and helped me.”

“Well thank fuck for Jack. We’re leaving right now. You want me to stay on the phone with you?”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you, Shitty.”

“No problem, bro. See you in a few.”

Bitty hangs up and turns the phone over in his hand just to have something to do with them. 

“My friends are coming. You don’t have to wait, I can sit in my car.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says. “I don’t have anywhere to be. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine, really. Just shaken up. Nothing like this has happened to me before. I usually get a ride to work if I know the weather is going to be bad and you know, there’s not a lot of ice on the roads down in Georgia.”

“I didn’t think you were from around here.”

“I could say the same about you,” Bitty points out. He had picked up on the accent right away.

“Canada originally.”

Bitty laughs. “So you’re really used to all this.”

“Guess so,” he says. There’s a small smile on his face that’s so soft Bitty feels like he could start crying all over again.

Bitty rests his head against the window and the only noise in the cab of the truck comes from the heater until Bitty spots Shitty’s beat up Jeep coming slowly around the corner.

“That’s them,” Bitty says. “Jack, I can’t even begin to thank you. Lord, if you hadn’t of stopped I’d probably still be sitting in the ditch crying my eyes out. What’s your favorite kind of pie?”

“What?”

“Pie. What kind? I can make anything. I can bring it to you or ship it to you, or, I work at a bakery in the city and you can pick it up there if that would be better. I know giving your address to a stranger is kind of weird…”

“I really don’t need a pie.”

“But I have to thank you.”

“You don’t. You already did. It’s okay. I don’t need anything.”

“But I just feel terrible about taking up so much of your time.”

“Don’t. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Well, thanks to you.”

Bitty puts his arms around Jack’s shoulders and hugs him, tight but brief before he slips out the door and right into Lardo’s open arms.

Jack drives off as Shitty comes around the front of the car.

“Was that Jack?” He asks as he wraps his arms around the both of them. “I wanted to thank him.”

“Yeah,” Bitty says as he looks at the fading tail lights and then down at the package of tissues in his hand. “So did I.”

******

“I mean, he’s basically my guardian angel.”

Bitty is three beers in at the bar and has told this story at least eight times since it’s happened four days ago. His friends know it by heart.

“Oh please, Bits,” Lardo says sarcastically as she lets her head loll to the side and rest on Shitty’s shoulder. “Tell this story again. You know how much we all love to hear.”

“Tell us about how blue his eyes were, Bitty,” Nursey says.

Dex snorts into his beer. “I want to know how tall he was.”

“So blue and so tall. My angel. He just showed up out of nowhere right when I needed him.”

Everyone groans but Bitty forges on.

“He shows up, saves my life- I mean, I could’ve froze to death out there.”

“No you wouldn’t have. You would have called us and we would’ve picked you up.” Shitty points out.

“How would I have gotten my car out of there? I would have had to of called a tow truck. Jack saved my life and my wallet and I don’t even know his last name. I’ll probably never see him again. He was there and then he wasn’t. He showed up and then he left. _Angel._ ”

“He was a guy who did a good deed.”

Bitty points a finger at him. “With the butt of an angel.”

His friends laugh as Bitty turns his attention to the hockey game playing on one of the TV screens.

The National Anthem is playing and the camera is alternating shots of the flag and the players. 

It’s starts at the ice and begins to pan up and Bitty flaps his hands.

“This is my favorite part. The slow slide up their bodies. This is me as a cameraman.”

Lardo says something about Drunk Bitty being her favorite Bitty as the camera slides up the front of the player's jersey to their neck and finally to their face. 

Bitty gasps and drops the bottle he’s holding as he recognizes his angel. 

Captain of the Providence Falconers, Jack Zimmermann. 

“Oh, shit.”


End file.
